A friend of mine is handicapped and for these reasons cannot use a stick shift. Presently he is using a Esteem AX. He is the market for a new Auto car that will offer his enough acceleration to be used on Hway (passing) as well. Budget 9 Lakhs.

Obvious choice:
NHC CVT (however he drove it and it was not peppy enough for him and is worried about is performance while passing trucks on the highway)

Hey Navin the Optra AT is a nice cruider but nothing really on performance I hav e driven it myself. The Corolla on the other hand is a nice car to drive and is good on performance even in AT. Btw what is your friends budget . Has he considered the Octavia diesel AT?

I read somewhere that the CVT in the NHC will require heavy maintenance after a mileage as low as 50,000km. I think that the friend should raise the budget a little bit go for an auto. Octavia. 2nd coice should be a corrola.

Well,an uncle of mine picked up a Corolla AT 2004 for bout 7Lacs.
Its a nice car with a great feeling apart from the braking which is shady and ofcourse the suspension which is not as good as expected.
But a better VFM wud be the Skoda AT.Excellent and better than the Corolla.

Ok i dont think there is much to worry abt overtaking in the CVT... I have a CVT, u just need to know how to drive it and how to pull the power...its not a very powerfull car so u need to pump it hard into the S mode.... use D to drive and when u need to overatake push it into S and u get enuf power.
And if u want to go a segment up then u would hv to get a use one....and i think the Accord automatic is a much better option. Thats the car i drive not the new shape accord but the previous generation and i think that would definatly be u r best pick... it has ALOT of power and waayy peppyier than the Corolla.... i drove a frnds corolla auto and it seemed dead compared to my car.
Another good option but then what would be strectching u r budget is the diesel skoda AT ...perfect combination of FE and the comfort of an automatic

i'd say go for a used corolla auto....but i doubt these would be readily available in the used car market. The NHC cvt is a good car for the city...but the highway performance leaves a lot to be desired...and from reading reports, even the optra AT is sluggish but much better than the NHC. I made my choice with an understanding that more powerful a car...less sluggish will it be. So the corolla wins from the choices given.